Sharjah24 – Reuters: Mandatory vaccination or imposing a lockdown on people unvaccinated against Covid-19 raises human rights issues and countries should consider those measure "extremely carefully", senior WHO official Mike Ryan said on Tuesday (November 16).

Austria imposed a lockdown on people unvaccinated against the coronavirus on Monday (November 15) as winter approaches and infections rise across Europe, with Germany considering tighter curbs and Britain expanding its booster programme to younger adults.

Europe has again become the epicentre of the pandemic, prompting some countries to consider re-introducing restrictions in the run-up to Christmas and stirring debate over whether vaccines alone are enough to tame COVID-19.

"This raises real issues around civil liberties... around human rights and it's something that governments should consider extremely carefully", Ryan, the head of WHO's emergencies programme, told a social media event.

France, Netherlands and many countries in Eastern Europe are also experiencing a surge in infections.

Ryan also called on governement to implement those measure only as a last resort and for the shortest possible period of time.

"Mandatory vaccination is not the best means to achieve the highest vaccine uptake," he added.

WHO technical lead for Covid-19, Maria Van Kerkhove, warned that cases and deaths are increasing for the fourth week in a row globally.

"Out of those 3.3 million cases reported in the last week, more 2.1 million were reported in Europe alone. It's an 8% increase over the last week," she said, adding that transmission is higher in countries with low vaccination coverage.